ksk04

Symphony in C is not new to ABT. They did it during their 2001 City Center season.http://abt.org/educa...hive/index.html Oh I know that...I meant touring wise for next year. I wasn't sure if anyone had already posted what ABT was doing for their mixed bill on the DC tour.

Interesting rep to bring back for so (disappointly) few performances, but maybe some of this will make it to DC or LA for their 2013 tours (not holding my breath on the last one). Actually, upon checking the Kennedy Center's website, the Moor's Pavane is making it DC (along with Symphony in C...is this new news? Natalia?) I seem to remember Xiomara Reyes as the Cowgirl in Rodeo last time...I can see Boylston getting a run at it this time perhaps?

How cruel Marcelo was cast as the Purple Rothbart while Veronika was Odette...so close yet so far away! She must do a lot of head scratching when casting gets posted as Bolle gets partnered up with Kent, Dvorovenko, and Herrera and Marcelo gets partnered with Diana (at least understandable as they at least have an established and magnetic partnership). Glad to hear she is in top form regardless.

Maria is leaving for a year to be a guest principal at Julio Bocca's company where she guested last year as Medora. IMO, her fate will be sealed when she returns--ie. Kevin will give her a slew of new roles and a promotion based on what she's done with Bocca, or she will be "Flagship Soloist/Junior Principal" #2 for the rest of her career at ABT. Misty is principal "material" (she has a star quality and ability to connect with the audience as made clear in the Firebird), but she needs a couple 3-acters under her belt to test her mettle and further her acting chops. After this season, Misty, Kristi, and Simone (debatable as she's done Myrtha) will be the soloists who haven't lead an evening length ballet at the Met, so I think once casting goes out next year for the Met we will see clearly McKenzie's plans for her.

Thanks for the new info! I'm surprised ABT is taking such a big risk on a triple bill at the Met-especially considering the somewhat muted response to the Firebird given the amount of publicity, but bravo. And Firebird was something we were all clamoring to see Ratmasky's take. Also--I'm glad this topic was bumped up as I've got another tibit, and I didn't know where to put it: I was browsing the Antony Tudor Trust website the other day and it says ABT will be doing Leaves are Fading in Fall 2012 (assumingly at City Center). http://www.antonytud.../news/news.html

Helene, I just checked my tickets and I see I will be seeing this at the end of August rather than this week (I get the Bolshoi Corsaire this weekend), so perhaps yes it will be?

Just got my tickets today! Completely thrilled about the switch to Alexandrova. I also see Kristina Karaseva (of the much admired, magnificent DQ backbends that many of us have seen on tour) down for the mazurka.

There's nothing wrong with it if you want to split up the soloist category in two and then give the "junior principals" (or whatever name you want to call them) the rank, pay, rehearsal time, and coaching that they should be afforded. That's not what McKenzie is doing though, and he's delusional if he thinks that what he is doing with the soloists (and some of the principals who see opportunities continually lost out to the flood guest artists) would have been acceptable to him or make him feel valued if he was in their position.

Update to the expanding Cinemark locations for the summer. There is now a website which makes the whole thing more streamlined: http://www.cinemark.com/bolshoi-ballet If you buy tickets to all six showings up front they are offering a 42% discount off face value. Not bad! That makes each one $7 which is cheaper than I've paid for any movie not at a discount theater in many, many years.

Some of the music (including the two big pdd for Tatiana/Onegin) for the ballet appear on this CD: http://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Onegin-Variations-Ballet-Imperial/dp/B004GJV8XE/ref=sr_1_18?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1339351089&sr=1-18&keywords=onegin Thanks to all for the reviews; know that those of us who cannot be there appreciate it immensely!

Apparently this one is 'lost' and has been replaced by a performance of LA SYLPHIDE on the same day. Phooey! Click on the same Pathe link provided by Rosa, above....now shows SYLPHIDE. Darn! I wanted to see those table top fouettes in their full glory!

The 2011-12 series will be re-run over the summer, adding 50 new Cinemark theater locations to the rotation. If you go to the Cinemark site, find your local theater, you should find the listings under the "Coming Soon" features if the theater will be showing them. This is exciting for me as the closest theater that showed this season's broadcasts was 30 miles away, so if you've been frustrated by the lack of showings near you, you may wish to check up on the summer reruns with Cinemark. I was at a movie tonight and they ran a nice trailer advertising the series, but when I went to the BalletinCinema website they didn't have my specific theater listed (why show a trailer for a special event you will not be showing?). However, further investigation at the listings for the specific Cinemark theater gave me the summer schedule. Why they can't make this easier, I don't know, but there you have it!

I was certainly planning on going, but when I finally went to buy tickets last week the run was entirely sold out (called this morning to confirm and see if anything was returned). I kept waiting to see how the casts held to get them, and well...lost out. I'm a little shocked as ballet never sells out in LA/OC and I usually am a last minute ticket buyer to no detriment to availability of seating or performance. I'm guessing it's the Black Swan effect, and I will plan much better for when the Mariinsky shows up with their SL in the fall if this is how it's going to be!! Hopefully this means the Bolshoi get a repeat invite asap from the Music Center and for a longer run than 4 days.

This must be hard on RDB, to lose Lund and Massot so closely together and so young (are there age rules about them retiring that they are following?). I am even more glad to have seen both of them on the RDB tour here last year.

Erica Cornejo was a soloist with ABT before she joined Boston Ballet in 2006. Beginning at the end of the summer, Maria Riccetto will be gone from ABT for a year to dance with Julio Bocca's company in Argentina (she guested as Medora with them recently as well). Sarah and Stella have also performed a variety of roles at other companies recently as guests (Stella as Aurora and Sarah Lane as O/O and Giselle), and Sarah has mentioned that Angel has spoken with her about joining Barcelona Ballet part time if they can work out scheduling, etc. Angel also "poached" quite a few ABT dancers as part of his permanent roster when he originally started his ballet company.

I, for one, am very disappointed to not get Alexandrova (probably one of my top three ballerinas) here, and am surprised they didn't send a more established principal, though I do enjoy Nikulina and Krysanova quite a bit.

Sounds like it was just a miscount on both of their parts-one or both went into the lift a second before or after the other. I would guess Bolle didn't catch her on the right moment before her plie into the overhead press, thereby having to haul her up into the press through brute force, putting her off center. If Irina tried to correct it, it would only make it worse as it sounds like it did. When I was dancing regularly, anytime a partnering issue happened it was always exacerbated through the woman trying to correct it mid-lift, because the man cannot predicate how to compensate. It's always best to hold whatever position and let the man fix it in his own way, even if his own way is just putting you down, thus ruining the lift. It's easy to forget that when you're hanging in the air and know something is terribly wrong though! I've seen Irina and him in R&J together without any issue, and that has much more complicated partnering. I think Bolle actually tweeted a picture of them rehearsing Giselle as far back as March, so they've been at it for awhile.

Thanks for posting; I love Smirnova in pretty much everything I see her in. Also highly recommended is her Lilac Fairy opposite Obraztsova--they are divine together.

They did it the year they went to Russia, so maybe two years ago? I remember we got a few clips of Isabella Boylston's debut in it. I would love for it to be brought out here but I'm just guessing it as a possibility because all the other pictures in brochure are of the actual rep that the companies are bringing. It's kind of weird picture to randomly throw in if they aren't bringing it. Either way, I would assume Le Corsaire is in for sure for Met 2013.

Finally announced! You can download the pdf here: http://www.musiccenter.org/events/dance_1213_season.pdf But the ballet highlights are: National Ballet of Canda in Wheeldon's Alice in Wonderland Joffrey Ballet in two mixed bills: Program A: Rite of Spring+After the Rain (yay!) / Program B: Rite of Spring+In the Middle Somewhat Elevated ABT in a mixed bill (unannounced but the brochure shows a pic of Theme and Variations) plus a 4 show run a Le Corsaire

It would go a long way if they went back to having longer City Center seasons, imo. ABT has many, many shorter narrative works that make for good testing ground for future full-length tryouts. They just need to actually program decent work, rather than the weird rep they've put on for the last two years and their City Center seasons would be salvaged while giving the audiences a venue to "shop" new talent/partnerships.

I'm not sure what the benefit of Sarafanov would be when they already have Simkin on the roster. They remind me quite a bit of each other, and if people have issues with Simkin's younger looks for a lot of danseur roles than Sarafanov runs into the same issue. Plus, Sarafanov is not a great partner dealing with the extremely willowy ladies of the Mariinsky so Id be a little nervous to see what he might make of the slightly less willowy ladies of ABT (this is not a slight to the bodies of women of ABT at all, I like that they look healthy) and he's not a great actor. Cobweb--Golding left ABT for Corella Ballet when Corella was first getting the company together (maybe 07/08ish), then moved on to the DNB after. His height alone should have had Kevin begging him to stay, since he likes tall female dancers so much.

No worries..here we go. It's purposefully cagey, I believe, due to what they are dancing. http://youtu.be/xbYlWrvMitY

Ah thanks for posting! Disappointing they are only fielding two casts (though my wallet is be grateful). Hopefully the Mariinsky doesn't take this cue when they bring SL down here a few months after. Where is Alexandrova or Zakharova? Or Obratzova?! I really enjoy both Nikulina and Krysanova though, so I am pleased I get to at least see them! It's interesting they are opening the run with a soloist rather than the principal.

Indeed. What's silly is that this has basically been the case for several years and no one has come up with a real game plan aside from "let's hire random dancers for 5 performances here and there, that's a genius solution!" I just don't understand how management hasn't dealt with this better given the very large lead up time to all of these retirements/exits. It's not like suddenly we found out that Carreno turned 40, or Corella has his own company, or that Stiefel has had way too many injuries to continue, or the Beloserkovsky is almost unusable except to dance with his wife on a few occasions.